The differing production levels of rookies across positions led me to this question: for players that end up being good, how quickly did they get good?

To get a very quick read on this, I looked at all players whose careers started in 1970 or later and made at least one Pro Bowl in their career. For each such player, I noted the season in which he was named to his first Pro Bowl.

If you look at the 'rb' column, for example, you'll note that 23.2 percent of all running backs who eventually made a Pro Bowl made it in their rookie season, another 24.6 percent made their first Pro Bowl in their second year, and so on.

It is clear that the learning curves do vary quite a bit by position. For obvious reasons, rookie quarterbacks find it much more difficult to excel than rookie running backs do. Wide receivers and tight ends are somewhere in between.

The lack of rookie Pro Bowlers on the offensive line and on defense probably has as much to do with the Pro Bowl selection process as it does with the learning curve. Since there aren't as many stats to rely on, Pro Bowlers are determined more by reputation at those positions (as I discussed on this other blog before the p-f-r blog was in existence). Hence fewer young players.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 27th, 2006 at 5:38 am and is filed under History, NFL Draft.
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Another method for evaluating any position -- although far from perfect -- is compensation. There is a strong correlation between player salary and player ability, although it's very murky around the edges. For something like grading OL however, that's about all we have.

As for this data here, I copied it and analyzed it slightly differently. I looked at what percentage had made the Pro Bowl for the first time BY what year, so as to make the numbers cumulative (38% of all QBs who ever make the Pro Bowl make it by their third year, for example).

RBs lead every year until year five. By their fifth season, 86.6% of all eventual Pro Bowl WRs have been to Hawaii, compared to "only" 83.4% of RBs. The WR position actually leads all positions for the rest of the way. This simply means that older WRs who haven't yet made the Pro Bowl are less likely to make it than elder statesmen at other positions. This might be explained in part because of the Pro Bowlers per position ratio (I'm not sure of the data, but I'd imagine WRs have a very low ratio).

This is somewhat counterintuitive, because we think that WRs age better than RBs. Looked at in another light, 13.4% of all eventual Pro Bowl WRs aren't selected in their first five seasons; 16.6% of all eventual Pro Bowl RBs aren't selected in their first five seasons. If you ask the average NFL fan, I'd imagine most would expect those numbers to be larger in contrast and reversed. But maybe there are more RBs like Tiki Barber (year 8), Charlie Garner (year 7) and Craig "Ironhead" Heyward (year 8) than WRs like Ed McCaffrey (year 8), Cris Carter (year 7) and Drew Hill (year 10). However, I'd expect it go be more explained by the awarding of Pro Bowl berths to "non-traditional" RBs -- guys that catch a ton of passes, are fullbacks, or special team stars (or all of the three). Glyn Milburn, Brian Mitchell and Richie Anderson are good examples of that.